SY JOC LIENG, SY YOC CHAY, SY JUI NIU and SY CHUA VIU, plaintiffs vs.

PETRONILA ENCARNACION, GREGORIO SY QUIA, PEDRO SY QUIA, JUAN SY QUIA, and GENEROSO MENDOZA SY QUIA, defendants

FACTS: Plaintiffs (all chinese citizens) claim that they are the heirs of Vicente Romero Sy Quia, being married to Yap Puan Niu in or about the year 1847 in Amoy, China; thereby, they are entitled to the inheritance left by Vicente. On the other hand, defendants (Filipinos) are as found by the lower courts, the legitimate heirs of Vicente as he was married to Petronila Encarnacion (a native of Vigan, Ilocos Sur) on June 9, 1853 as shown in their certificate of marriage. Plaintiffs allege that they are the rightful heirs and that the subsequent marriage of Vicente was void. Defendants maintained that the claim of the plaintiffs regarding the alleged first marriage of Vicente were fraudulent. The plaintiffs presented witnesses and got their respective depositions in China to prove that the first marriage took place. The lower courts found that there is no marriage to Yap contrary to the allegations of the plaintiffs. The decision is based on the improbability of the allegations of the plaintiffs that Vicente lived in China for around four years after such marriage. There being no valid marriage certificate presented and the testimonies of the witnesses presented contradict each other. In the plaintiffs' subsequent pleadings, they prayed that the decision be reversed and that the properties of Vicente be distributed to them according to the laws of China.

ISSUES: Whether or not Chinese law will apply?

RULING: No. Vicente is a Filipino citizen. It is an admitted fact the Vicente was a native Chinaman and therefore a foreigner; that he came to this country in 1839 or 18940, when he was 12 years of age. He having resided in these Islands since then and until January 1894, when he died, that is to say for a period of more than 53 years, having obtained for the purpose the necessary license or permission, and having been converted to the Catholic religion, marrying a native woman in the city of Vigan and establishing his domicile first in the Province of Ilocos and later in this city of Manila, with the intention of residing here permanently, engaging in business generally and acquiring real estate, it is unquestionable that by virtue of all these acts he acquired a residence and became definitely domiciled in these Islands with the same rights as any nationalized citizen in accordance with the laws in force in these Islands while he lived here and until his death.

Even disregarding the fact that the plaintiffs should have, but have not, alleged in their complaint, as one of the facts constituting their cause of action, the existence of a law passed and promulgated in China, the existence of which law, being foreign, should have been alleged in the complaint, the fact remains that there is absolutely no evidence in the record as to the existence of the Chinese laws referred to by plaintiffs in their subsequent pleadings, the evidence of this character introduced by them consisting of books or pamphlets written in Chinese characters and marked "Exhibits AH, AI, AJ, andAK, which they claim contain a compilation of the laws of China, being useless and of no value.

It may be that contain, as plaintiff claim, the laws of China, but we have no Spanish translation of them, they being in the Chinese language, and written with characters which are absolutely unknown to this court and to the defendants. Further, the plaintiffs have not prescribed by section 292 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and, finally, there is no evidence that these four books or pamphlets were printed by authority of the ChineseGovernment or that they have been duly authenticated by the certificate of competent authorities or that they are properly sealed with the seal of the nation to which they belong. For this reason the said books or pamphlets can not, under any circumstances, be considered as documentary proof of the laws of China.

Section 301 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides:

"A copy of the written law, or other public writing of any State or country, attested by the certificate of the officer having charge of the original, under the seal of the State or country, is admissible as evidence of such law or writing.

Section 302 provides as follows:

"The oral testimony of witnesses, skilled therein, is admissible as evidence of the unwritten law of the United States or of any State of the United States, or foreign country, as are also printed and published books of reports of decisions of the courts of the United States or of such State or country, or proved to be commonly admitted in such courts."

The jurisprudence of American and Spanish tribunals is uniform on this subject. For the purposes of this decision however it will be sufficient to refer to the judgment of the supreme court of Spain of the

26th of May, 1887, where in it is said:

"Whenever a foreign law is invoked in our tribunals, its existence must be satisfactory established as any other fact.

If the pamphlets or books, written in Chinese characters, do not satisfactory establish the existence of certain Chinese laws invoked by the plaintiffs, not only because such pamphlets or books lack the aforesaid formalities and requisites, but further because there is no evidence as to the nature of the laws contained in those books or pamphlets and the subjects with which they deal; on the other hand, the two witnesses whose testimony was introduced for the purpose of establishing the authenticity of the laws which, according to the plaintiffs, are contained in the said books, were unable to say positively at least that the book marked Exhibit AH contains an exact copy of the original. And the Chinese consul of this city, Sy Int Chu, after stating that he had never made a regular study of the laws of his country, simply consulting the same in connection with his official reports, admitted that he had never read or seen the original copy of this alleged compilation, the books not being duly certified, adding that he could not say whether the book marked. "Exhibit AH" was an exact copy of the original.

The testimony of the witness Ly Ung Bing, the interpreter, as to the written and unwritten laws of China, does not show, as required by the Code of Civil Procedure, that he knew such laws or that he was acquainted with the nature of the laws alleged to be contained in the said books. He merely confined himself to expressing his own opinion with reference to the two classes of laws. He, not being an expert on the subject throughly conversant with the laws of China, his testimony, considering the manner in which laws of China, his testimony, considering the manner in which he testified, can not even be accepted as a partial evidence that the said four books really contain the written and unwritten laws of China.